I’m a strong believer in communication as a vehicle for change.  This might sound like a generic statement, but that’s just because I’m not as good of a communicator as I’d like to be.  I’ve been realizing that a lot of what I idolize in others is the power of communication.  Paul Farmer is great because he’s so good at explaining and contextualizing human rights and social justice in health.  And the fact that he leads by example communicates a lot as well.  James Orbinski’s wikipedia entry states that he …

Yesterday I went to a Global Health Discussion Forum, a “monthly forum for members of the healthcare and educational communities to learn more about international projects around Toronto.” This particular one highlighted the brand new Textbook on International Health: Global Health in a Dynamic World, written by Anne-Emanuelle Birn (a former professor of mine), Timothy Holtz and Yogan Pillay.
In the discussion, Birn focused on how the textbook is different from those that have come before it, emphasizing that it approaches the subject of international health from a critical political …

The Globe and Mail recently ran an article called “Banned Aid” on the new funding approach to international development agencies in Canada. Canada has made recent changes to their funding approach restricting their major funding to 20 key countries essentially abandoning countries like Malawi, Rwanda, Niger among others (they still give some aid but it is a very small percentage of their former funding. When I was in university there was chatter among some of my professors that this was the way the Canadian Government was moving so I can’t …

I meant to post this for a while, but didn’t get to it until now…it was still bike season when I read it!
In her 2008 book, The Wisdom Of Whores, Elizabeth Pisani manages to piss everyone off.  The result is a compelling read about what she refers to as the “bureaucrats, brothels and the business of AIDS”.
Based on years of experience as an epidemiologist and writer for UNAIDS, Pisani asks us to look at HIV/AIDS pragmatically rather than ideologically.  It seems simple enough: AIDS programs should be based on evidence.  …

Just finished Dr. James Orbinski’s new book, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the 21st Century.
For those of you who don’t know him, Orbinski is one of Canada’s global health heroes. He accepted the Nobel Prize for Doctors Without Borders while he was its international president and has since worked on developing MSF’s Access to Essential Medicine’s Campaign and establishing Dignitas International, an organization that provides community-based HIV/AIDS treatment in Malawi.
I’ve heard Orbinski speak a couple of times, including at the Hope in the Balance forum last November. …